Talk:Bisharp (5e Race)

Musicus Meter Score: 6.5

This race has a score of 6.5 according to the Musicus Meter race guidelines. With this metric, first-party races' scores range from 4.5 to 8. This is a guideline, not a rule, and it's important to use your own judgment alongside this scoring.

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--ConcealedLight (talk) 08:30, 18 March 2018 (MDT)

Bisharp

Cost	Racial Trait
2	Strength score increases by 2.
1	Intelligence score increases by 1.
2	Iron Defense
-0.5	Steel Flesh
0.5	Inner Focus
0.5	Pressure
0.5	Defiant
0.5	Bladed Body
6.5	Total.

Whistle Oooh boy, time to tackle quite possibly my worst race yet. This guy was so overpowered I have no idea why I even allowed myself to post it. What made this guy so terrible? Well, among other traits (like giving him Unarmored Defense), I gave him Pressure, which read as follows:

"If a creature you can see casts a spell within 30 feet of you, you can force that creature to spend en extra spell slot. If they don't, the spell automatically fails. This can only be used if the spell is of the 3rd level or lower. This can only be done once per long rest."

Yes, I seriously considered this a viable ability. Amazingly enough, so did a few of my fellow DnD players (and even Dungeon Master) to whom I showed this guy to, but I'm starting to think they thought I was creating a monster rather than a monster of a character race. Ok, self-deprecating aside, the reason I gave him this ability was because i was trying to figure out how to make Pressure work in DnD, considering how it works in Pokemon is that it causes a pokemon affected by it to use two PP instead of one. I instead decided to change it to proficiency in Intimidation given the following reasons:

1. When I think "exerting pressure", I think of how something is so powerful that you can "feel" it (not sure if I'm even explaining this properly, but I'm unsure how else to). 2. Given the fact that, out of all the 25 pokemon who have this ability (not counting Deoxy's alternate forms), 14 of them are legendary pokemon. If you take my first reason into account, it kind of makes sense.

Inner Focus scored a 1 since it was like Brave, but with two conditions applied.

As for Unarmored Defense, we can chalk that up to me having a brain-fart and forgetting Natural Armor was a thing. However, the addition of poison immunity and vulnerability to acid damage was meant to not only reflect Pokemon but also combine DnDs mechanics - Steel types cannot be poisoned (barring Salazzle's Corrosion ability) and have resistance to poison (which makes me wonder WHY I made it immune to poison damage and not resistant), but, in DnD, armor and weapons that aren't magical can be destroyed with acid damage, and, since Bisharp's have bodies practically made of steel, well... Still, that was admittedly a rather poor attempt at mixing pokemon and DnD together.

I corrected this by, naturally, giving it Natural Armor and rewriting the resistance/vulnerability part (Steel Flesh), meaning it was graded a -0.5 since it was pretty much a combination of Damage Vulnerability (-1) and Poison Resilience (0.5).

Defiant is just the Hobgoblin's "Saving Face" by another name. I felt it fit given the nature of Bisharps.

As for it learning Orc, this is because....actually, I don't really know WHY I had it so it knew Orc. I think it was because of how violent these creatures are, but, as was recommended, I changed it to being able to know whatever extra language the player wishes (so I guess depending on who is playing it could still know Orc. *chuckle*)

Anyway, hopefully my corrections have made this race a bit more playable.

--MetalShadowOverlord (talk) 16:45, 17 March 2018 (MDT)

Good work again. I've taken off their advantage on being stunned but other then that it was good with the exception of a few grammatical and capitalization issues. The Help:When_to_Italicize_and_Capitalize section tell you everything you need to know in regards to that. --ConcealedLight (talk) 08:30, 18 March 2018 (MDT)

Thank you. Oddly enough, I actually forget why I made Inner Focus give you advantage against being Frightened AND Stunned. In fact, JUST having advantage against being Stunned would have made more sense given how in Pokemon Inner Focus prevents you from flinching, which is sort of like a one-turn stun. Then again, people usually flinch as a fearful reaction, so maybe that was why I did it.

Oh yeah, I need to look that one over. Forgot about that. Thanks again! --MetalShadowOverlord (talk) 00:11, 19 March 2018 (MDT)

It's no problem, you can swap out the frightened for the stunned if you wish. It shouldn't change the score. --ConcealedLight (talk) 07:41, 19 March 2018 (MDT)